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LETTERS FROM A 
FATHER TO HIS SON 
ENTERING COLLEGE 



BY 

CHARLES FRANKLIN THWING 

President of Western Reserve University 



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THE PLATT & PECK CO. 



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Copyright, 1912 
By THE PLATT & PECK CO. 



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PREFATORY NOTE. 

Parts of the letters that make up this little 
book were read to my own college boys at the 
opening of a college year. They represent 
somewhat, but of course only a bit, of what I 
believe many a father would like to say to his 
own son, — as I to mine, — when he is entering 
the most important year of his college life — 
the Freshman. Those who first heard them, — 
even though obliged to hear, — seemed to suffer 
them gladly. They are, therefore, brought to- 
gether, and sent out to fathers and to sons, 
and with a peculiar feeling of sympathy for 
both the parent and the boy at one of the 
crises of the life of each. 

C. F. T. 
Western Reserve University, 
Cleveland. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I Thought 9 

II The Essential Gentleman 22 

III Health as an Asset 25 

IV Appreciation 29 

V Scholarship 31 

VI The Intellectual Life 40 

VII The Use of Time 43 

VIII Culture 53 

IX College Morals 61 

X Weakness of Character 65 

XI The Genesis of Success 68 

XII Religion 91 



LETTERS FROM A FATHER 

TO HIS SON ENTER. 

ING COLLEGE 



MY Dear Boy : — I am glad you 
want to go to college. Pos- 
sibly I might send you even if you 
did not want to go, yet I doubt it. 
One may send a boy through college 
and the boy is sent through. None 
of the college is sent through him. 
But if you go, I am sure a good deal 
of the college will somehow get 
lodged in you. 

You will find a thousand and one 
things in college which are worth 
while. I wish you could have each 
of them, but you can not. You have 

9 



Letters from a Father to 

to use the elective system, even in 
the Freshman year. The trouble is 
not that so few boys do not seem to 
know how to distinguish the good 
from the bad, but that so many boys 
do not know the better from the 
good and the best from the better. I 
have known thousands of college 
boys, and they do not seem to dis- 
tinguish, or, if they do, they do not 
seem to be able to apply the gospel 
of difference. 

You won't think me imposing on 
you — will you^ — if before entering 
college I tell you of some things 
which seem to me to be most 
worthy of your having and being on 
the day you get your A- B. 

10 



His Son Entering College 

The first thing I wish to say to 
you is that I want you to come out 
of the college a thinker. But how 
to make yourself a thinker is both 
hard to do and hard to tell. Yet, 
the one great way of making your- 
self a thinker is to think. Thinking 
is a practical art. It cannot be 
taught. It is learned by doing. 
Yet there are some subjects in the 
course which seem to me to be bet- 
ter fitted than others to teach you 
this art. Fve been trying to find out 
what are some of the marks or char- 
acteristics of these subjects. They 
are, I believe, subjects which re- 
quire concentration of thought ; sub- 

jects which have clearness in their 

11 



Letters from a Father to 

elements, yet which are comprehen- 
sive, which are complex, which are 
consecutive in their arrangements 
of parts, each part being closely, 
rigorously related to every other, 
which represent continuity, of which 
the different elements or parts may 
be prolonged unto far reaching con- 
sequences. Concentration in the 
thinker, clearness, comprehensive- 
ness, complexedness, consecutive- 
ness, continuity — there are the six 
big C's, which are marks of the sub- 
jects which tend to create the think- 
er. 

To attempt to apply each of 
these marks to many different sub- 
jects of the curriculum represents a 

12 



His Son Entering College 

long and unduly stupefying labor. 
Apply them for yourself. Different 
subjects have different worths for 
the students, but there are certain 
recognized values attached to each 
coin of the intellectual realm. 

Mathematics and pure physics 
eminently represent the larger part 
of these six elements which I have 
named. Mathematics demands con- 
centration. Mathematics is, in a 
sense, the mind giving itself to 
certain abstract truths. What is X^ 
but a form of the mind? Mathe- 
matics demands clearness of think- 
ing and of statement. Without 
clearness mathematics is naught. It 
also represents comprehensiveness. 

13 



Letters from a Father to 

The large field of its truth is pressed 
into its greater relationships. 
Mathematical truth is complex. 
Part is involved with part. It is 
consecutive. Part follows part in 
necessary order. It is also continu- 
ous. It represents a graded prog- 
ressi. 

It is, however, to be remembered 
thai the reasoning of mathematics 
is urtlike most reasoning which we 
usually employ. Mathematical 
reasoning is necessary. Most rea- 
soning is not necessary. That two 
plus two equal four is a truth about 
which people do not differ usually. 
But reasoning in economics, such as 
the protective tariff; reasoning in 

14 



His Son Entering College 

philosophy, such as the presence or 
absence of innate ideas; reasoning 
in history; is not absolute. I have 
even wondered how far Cambridge, 
standing for mathematics and the 
physical sciences, has helped to 
make men great. Oxford is said to 
be the mother of great movements, 
and it is. Here the Wesleyan 
movement, and the Tractarian 
movement and the Social move- 
ment, as seen in Toynbee Hall, had 
their origins. Cambridge is called 
the mother of great men. Is there 
any relation of cause and effect, at 
Cambridge, between its emphasis 
upon mathematics and the sciences 

15 



Letters from a Father to 

and the great men whom she has 
helped to make*? 

Logic is the subject of a course 
which embodies the six marks I have 
laid down. It demands these great 
elements in almost the same ways in 
which mathematics demands them. 
Logic, in a sense, might be called 
applied or incarnate mathematics. 
The man who wishes to be a thinker 
should be and is the master of logic. 

Language, too, represents almost 

one half of the course of the modern 

college, and it represented more 

than one half of the course of the 

older college. What merits has the 

study of language for making the 

thinker? The study of languages 

16 



His Son Entering College 

makes no special demand on the 
quality of concentration, but the 
study does demand and creates com- 
prehensiveness and clearness. The 
study represents a complex process 
and requires analysis. The time- 
spirit has worked and still works in 
languages unto diverse and mani- 
fold forms. Languages are de- 
veloped with a singular union of 
orderliness and disorderliness. The 
parts of a language are in some 
cases closely related. The Greek 
verb is the most highly developed 
linguistic product. It is built up 
with the delicacy and poise of a 
child's house of blocks, yet with the 
orderliness of a Greek temple. Each 

17 



Letters from a Father to 

letter represents a different mean- 
ing. Augment, prefix, ending has 
its own significance. I asked a 
former Chinese minister to this 
country what taught him to think. 
His succinct answer was '' Greek.'' 
In creating the thinker, the his- 
torical and social sciences have chief 
value in their complex relation- 
ships. Select any period of history 
pregnant with great results. For 
instance, select the efflorescence of 
the Greek people after the Persian 
wars. What were the causes of this 
vast advance? Take, for instance, 
the political and social condition 
prevalent for thirty years in Amer- 
ica before the Civil War. What 

18 



His Son Entering College 

were the causes of this war? Or, 
take economic affairs — what are 
the reasons for and against a pro- 
tective tariff? What are the limi- 
tations of such a tariff? Such con- 
ditions require comprehensive 
knowledge of complex matters. 
From such mastery the thinker re- 
sults, — the thinker of consideration 
and considerateness. He can per- 
ceive a series of facts and the rela- 
tion of each to each. 

The law of values of these differ- 
ent subjects in making the thinker, 
is that the subjects which demand 
hard thinking are most creative* 
Easy subjects, or hard subjects easi- 
ly worked out, have little place in 

19 



Letters from a Father to 



the making of a thinker. One must 
think hard to become a hard thinker. 
Subjects and methods which are 
hard create the inevitable result. 

Subjects which demand thinking 
only, however, sometimes are rather 
barren in result. One likes a certain 
content or concreteness in the think- 
ing process. Abstract thinking 
sometimes seems like a balloon 
which has no connection with the 
earth. If a balloon is to be guided, 
it must be held down to terra firma. 
The ricksha men in Japan can run 
better if the carriage has a load. 
The bullet must have weight 
to go. A subject, therefore, which 

has content may quicken think- 

20 



His Son Entering College 

ing and stimulate thoughtfulness. 
The thinker is not made, how- 
ever, only by the subjects he studies. 
In this condition the teacher has his 
place, and especially the methods 
of teaching and the inspiring quali- 
ties of teaching which he represents, 
have value. The dead lift of the 
discipline of the mind is liable to 
be a deadening process. Every sub- 
ject needs a man to vitalize it for 
the ordinary student. Every gradu- 
ate recalls teachers of such strength. 
He holds them in unfading grati- 
tude and often in deathless affec- 
tion. 



21 



Letters from a Father to 

11. 

The second thing I want to say 
to you is that I want you to be a 
gentleman. How absurd it is for 
me to write that to you. Of course, 
you are, and, of course, you will be 
one. In the creation of the gentle- 
man as well as of the thinker, the 
personal equation counts. In fact, 
it counts for more in the making of 
the gentleman. For in this making 
truth is less important than the per- 
sonality. In the gentleman intel- 
lectual altruism and moral appreci- 
ativeness are large elements. One 
has to see and to understand the 
personal condition with which he 

22 



His Son Entering College 

deals. If he is dull, his conduct is 
as apt to give unhappiness as 
pleasure. 

In order to open the eyes of the 
heart, in order to create an intellec- 
tual conscientiousness, the study of 
great literatures must be assigned a 
high place. Constant and complex 
needs to be such study. Literature 
represents humanity. The humani- 
ties are humanity. Literature is 
style and style is the man. The 
gentleman as a product represents 
the homeopathic principle. The 
gentleman makes the gentleman. 
Certain colleges are distinguished 
by the type of gentleman which 
they create. It will usually be 

23 



Letters from a Father to 

found, on observation or analysis, 
that colleges which are distin- 
guished for the gracious conduct of 
their teachers toward their students 
are distinguished by the gracious 
bearing of their graduates. 

As a gentleman you will be a 
friend and will have friends. In 
this relation of friendship in its 
earlier stages there is no part of life 
in which it is more important for 
you to exercise the virtue and grace 
of reserve. Be in no haste to make 
friends. Friendships are growths, 
not manufactures. These growths, 
too, are like the elm and the oak, 
not like the willow. At this point 

lies all I want to say to you about 

24 



His Son Entering College 

joining a fraternity. If the men you 
want to be your intimate friends 
are members and ask you to join, 
accept. If the men you do not wish 
to be your intimate friends wish 
you to go with them, decline. Do 
not join for the sake of a blind pool 
membership. Such a membership 
is really a sort of social insincerity, 
a lie. 

Ill 

In the assessment of academic 
values, give a high place to sound 
health. The worth is so great that 
very slight may be the paragraph I 
write you. In the "Egoist," 
George Meredith says, "Health, 

25 



Letters from a Father to 

wealth and beauty are three con- 
siderations to be sought for in a 
woman, who is to become the wife 
of Sir Willoughby/' Wealth and 
beauty are quite as much out of 
ordinary results of the education of 
the American college as health 
should be among those results. 

One may be sick, and through 
sickness become a saint; one may 
be sick and through sickness become 
a sinner. But one cannot be sick and 
at the same time be as good a 
worker as he would be if he were 
not sick. Good workers the world 
needs, and, therefore, men of first- 
rate health the world needs. If one 

is to be a great worker, one must 

26 



His Son Entering College 

have great health. It is not for me 
to write as would a physician, but 
I may be allowed to say that in 
caring for health, one should not 
become self-conscious. Let me fur- 
ther suggest: — 

First — That you sleep eight 
hours. 

Second — Exercise at least a half 
an hour each day in the gymnasium. 

Third — Eat much of simple 
food ; but not too much ! 

Fourth — Don't worry. 

Fifth — Play ball much (base, 
foot, basket) ; but not too much! 

In a word, be a good animal. 
One of my old teachers once said 

27 



Letters from a Father to 



a 



iC 



to me after I was engaged in my 
work : — 

'' I am sorry to see you looking so 
well/' 

Why?'' 

Because every man has to break 
down three times in life. I broke 
down three times; Professor Hitch- 
cock broke down three times; every 
man must break down three times, 
and the earlier the breaks come, the 
better." 

There is no need of any man's 
breaking down, if he will observe 
with fair respect the laws of sleep, 
exercise and food. 



28 



His Son Entering College 

IV 

I also desire that you should be 
a man of scholarly sympathy and 
appreciation. I can hardly hope 
you will be a scholar. Yet you 
may. The scholar seldom emerges. 
If one out of each thousand stu- 
dents, entering the American col- 
lege this year, should prove to be a 
scholar, the proportion is as large 
as one can hope for. For up to one 
in a thousand is as big a proportion 
as the world is prepared to accept. 
Yet it is to be hoped that you and 
that most men should have appreci- 
ation and sympathy with scholar- 
ship. You should know what schol- 

29 



Letters from a Father to 

arship means: in work as toilsome- 
ness, in method as wisdom, in at- 
mosphere as thoroughness and pa- 
tience, in result as an addition to 
the stock of human knowledge. If 
you be a laborer in one field, you 
should not seek, and I know you 
will not seek, to discount the exist- 
ence of other fields, or despise the 
laborers in those fields. If you be- 
come an engineer, you will not con- 
demn the classicist as useless. If 
you are a Grecian, you will not 
despise the mechanical engineer as 
crass and coarse. 

One finds that the best men of 
any one field or calling are more in- 
clined to recognize the eminence of 

30 



His Son Entering College 

the claims of other fields or callings. 
Smallness spells provincialism, and 
provincialism spells smallness. I 
have heard one of the greatest teach- 
ers of chemistry say that if he were 
to make a boy a professor of chem- 
istry, he would, among other things, 
first teach him Greek. 

V 

The first principle of college life 
is the principle of doing one's duty. 
In your appreciation of scholarship, 
your first duty is to learn your les- 
sons. I have known many college 
men who learned their lessons, who 
yet failed to get from the college 
all that they ought to get. But I 

31 



Letters from a Father to 

have never known a man who failed 
to get his lessons, whatever else he 
may have got, to receive the full ad- 
vantage of the course. The curricu- 
lum of every good college is the re- 
sultant of scores or of hundreds of 
years of reflection and of trial. It 
represents methods, content, pur- 
poses, which many teachers through 
many experiments of success and of 
failure have learned are the best 
forces for training mind and for 
forming character. 

But for the student to receive 
worthy advantage from these forces 
he is obliged to relate himself to 
them by hard intellectual attention 
and application. Sir Leslie Stephen 

32 



His Son Entering College 

says that the Cambridge teachers of 
his time were not given to enthusi- 
asms, but preached common-sense, 
and common-sense said: '' Stick to 
your triposes, grind at your mill, 
and don't set the universe in order 
till you have taken your bachelor's 
degree/' The duty of the American 
college student is no less evident. 
He is to stick to his triposes. His 
triposes are his lessons. Among the 
greatest of all teachers was Louis 
Agassiz. A story has become classi- 
cal as told by the distinguished nat- 
uralist, the late Dr. Samuel H. 
Scudder, regarding the methods of 
the great teacher with his students. 
In brief the story is that Mr. 

33 



Letters from a Father to 

Scudder on going to Agassiz was 
told, " ' Take this fish and look at 
it. We call it a Hsemulon. By and 
by I will ask you what you have 
seen/ ... In ten minutes I had 
seen all that could be seen in that 
fish. . . . Half an hour passed, an 
hour, another hour; the fish began 
to look loathsome. I turned it over 
and around ; looked it in the face — • 
ghastly I — from behind, beneath, 
above, sideways, at three-quarters 
view — just as ghastly. I was in de- 
spair. At an early hour I concluded 
that lunch was necessary; so, with 
infinite relief, the fish was carefully 
replaced in the jar, and for an hour 
I was free. 

34 



His Son Entering College 

'' On my return I learned that 
Professor Agassiz had been at the 
Museum, but had gone, and would 
not return for several hours. . . . 
Slowly I drew forth that hideous 
fish, and, with a feeling of despera- 
tion, again looked at it. I might 
not use a magnifying glass; instru- 
ments of all kinds were interdicted. 
My two hands, my two eyes, and 
the fish; it seemed a most limited 
field. ... At last a happy thought 
struck me — I would draw the fish; 
and now with surprise I began to 
discover new features in the 
creature. . . . 

'' He listened attentively to my 
brief rehearsal of the structure of 

35 



Letters from a Father to 



parts whose names were still un- 
known to me. . . . When I had 
finished he waited, as if expecting 
more, and then, with an air of dis- 
appointment, ' You have not 
looked very carefully; why,' he con- 
tinued most earnestly, ' you haven't 
even seen one of the most conspicu- 
ous features of the animal, which is 
as plainly before your eyes as the 
animal itself. Look againi Look 
again ! ' and he left me to my 
misery. 

'' I ventured to ask what I should 
do next. 

'' ' Oh, look at your fish/ he said, 
and left me again to my own de- 
vices. In a little more than an hour 

36 



His Son Entering College 



he returned and heard my new cata- 
logue. 

That is good, that is good/ he 
repeated: 'but that is not all; go 
on/ And so for three long days he 
placed that fish before my eyes, for- 
bidding me to look at anything else 
or use any artificial aid. ' Look, 
look, look/ was his repeated injunc- 



tion.'' 



Doctor Scudder says that this was 
the best entomological lesson he 
ever had, and a lesson of which the 
influence extended to the details of 
every subsequent study. 

It is the duty of the college stu- 
dent to look at his fish, to thumb his 
lexicon, to read his textbook, to 

37 



Letters from a Father to 

study his notes, to think, and think 
hard, upon the truth therein pre- 
sented. Of all the students in the 
world the Scotch represent this 
simple duty the best. The men at 
Edinburgh, Glasgow, St. Andrews 
and Aberdeen toil mightily. 

The duty of learning one's les- 
sons is, in these times, opposed by 
at least two elements of college life. 
One is self-indulgence and the other 
is athletics. Self-indulgence is a 
general cause and constant. Ath- 
letics have in the last thirty years 
come to be a force more or less 
dominant. Athletics represent a 
mighty force for collegiate and hu- 
man betterment. Football, which 

38 



His Son Entering College 

is par excellence the college game, 
is an admirable method of training 
the man physical, the man intellec- 
tual and the man ethical. But foot- 
ball is not a college purpose ; it is a 
college means. It is a means for the 
promotion of scholarship, for the 
formation of manhood. When foot- 
ball or other forms of college sport 
are turned from being a method and 
a means into being ends in them- 
selves the misfortune is lamentable. 
At a recent Harvard commence- 
ment, Professor Shaler, than whom 
no man in Harvard was more vitally 
in touch with all undergraduate in- 
terests, spoke of the harm wrought 
upon many students through their 

39 



Letters from a Father to 

absorption in athletics. It cannot 
be denied for an instant that many 
men are hurt by giving undue atten- 
tion to sports. Of course many men 
are benefited, and are benefited 
vastly, by athletics, but men who 
are harmed should at once be ob- 
liged to learn the lesson of learning 
their lessons. That is the chief les- 
son which they ought to learn. 

VI 

In the appreciation of scholar- 
ship is found the strain of intellec- 
tual humility. The scholar is more 
inclined to inquire than to affirm. 
He is more ready to ask '' What do 

you think"? '' than to say '' I know." 

40 



His Son Entering College 

He is remote from intellectual arro- 
gance. Humility means greatness. 
Cockiness is a token of narrowness. 
The Socratic spirit of modesty is as 
true a manner of wisdom as it is an 
effective method of increasing wis- 
dom. The man who has an opinion 
on all things, has no right to an 
opinion on any one. 

This intellectual sympathy and 
appreciation should take on esthetic 
relations. You should be a lover 
of beauty as well as of wisdom. 
Good books, good pictures, good 
music, good architecture, should be 
among your avocations. Read a 
piece of good literature every day. 
See a good picture or a good copy of 

41 



Letters from a Father to 

one every day. Hear some good 
music every day. The chapel ser- 
vice may give it to you. And see 
a piece of good architecture every 
day. Some of the college buildings 
can give it. Alas! many do not. 
Such visions and hearings will soak 
into your manhood. 

All this is only saying lead the 
life intellectual. You should not 
only be a thinker, you should be 
thoughtful. You should be a man 
of large thoughtf ulness. You should 
be prepared to interpret life and all 
phenomena in terms of the intellect. 
Many of our countrymen are intel- 
ligent. They know a great deal. 

They have gathered up information 

42 



His Son Entering College 

■I J ' ' 

about many things. This informa- 
tion is desultory, unrelated. Their 
minds are a Brummagem drawer. 
Here, by the way, lies the worth- 
lessness of President Eliot's list of 
books to the untrained mind. To 
the educated mind such books mean 
much; to the uneducated, little. 
Yet, as a college man, you may 
know less than not a few unedu- 
cated people may know. I don't 
care. The life intellectual is more 
and most important. 

vn 

1 also want you to go from the 
college a good combination of a 
good worker and a good loafer. To 

43 



Letters from a Father to 



be able to loaf well is not a bad 
purpose of an education. The loaf- 
ing that carries along with itself the 
freedom from selfishness, apprecia- 
tion of others' conditions, and 
gentlemanliness, is worth commend- 
ing. Loafing that follows hard work 
and prepares for hard work is one of 
the best equipments of a man. Loaf- 
ing that has no object, loafing as a 
vocation, is to be despised. The 
late Professor Jebb wrote to his 
father once from Cambridge, say- 
ing :— 

'' I will read but not very hard; 
because I know better than vou or 
any one can tell me, how much read- 
ing is good for the development of 

44 



His Son Entering College 

my own powers at the present time, 
and will conduce to my success next 
year and afterwards; and I will not 
identify myself with what are called 
in Cambridge ' the reading set/ i. e.^ 
men who read twelve hours a day 
and never do anything else; (i) be- 
cause I should lose ten per cent, of 
reputation (which at the university 
is no bubble but real living useful 
capital) ; (2) because the reading 
set, with a few exceptions, are ut- 
terly uncongenial to me. My set is 
a set that reads, but does not only 
read; that accomplishes one great 
end of university life by mixing in 
cheerful and intellectual society, 
and learning the ways of the world 

45 



Letters from a Father to 

which its members are so soon to 
enter; and which, without the ped- 
antry and cant of the ' reading 
man/ turns out as good Christians, 
better scholars, better men of the 
world, and better gentlemen, than 
those mere plodders with whom a 
man is inevitably associated if he 
identifies himself with the reading 
set/' 

I rather like the loafing which 
young Jebb indulged in, but I fear 
it is a type of the life which some 
college men do not follow. They 
are inclined to look upon the four 
college years as a respite between 
the labor of the preparatory school 
and the labor of business, or rather 

46 



His Son Entering College 

they may look upon the four college 
years as a life of professional lei- 
sure. I am glad you cannot, even if 
you wished to, and I know you do 
not wish to, think of college as 
either respite or leisure. Whether 
the college is wise in allowing such 
loafing, it is not for me now to say, 
but I can trust you to be the proper 
kind of loafer as well as of worker. 
Indeed, I want you to have good 
habits of working. In such habits 
the valuation of time is of special 
significance. For time is not an 
agent. It does nothing. As a power, 
time is absolutely worthless. As a 
condition, time is of infinite worth. 
Mark Pattison, the rector of Lin- 

47 



Letters from a Father to 

coin College, said: ''Time seems 
infinite to the freshman in his first 
term/' But let me add that to a 
senior in his last term time is a 
swiftly moving opportunity. The 
need of time becomes more and more 
urgent as the college years go. 
When Jowett was fifty-nine years 
old, he wrote: '' I cannot say vix2, 
for I feel as if I were only just be- 
ginning and had not half com- 
pleted what I had intended. If I 
live twenty-five years more I will, 
Dei gratia^ accomplish a great work 
for Oxford and for philosophy in 
England. Activity, temperance, no 
enmities, self-denial, saving eyes, 
never overwork." On his seven- 

48 



His Son Entering College 

tieth birthday Jowett made out 
what he called his Scheme of Life. 
It was this: — 

EIGHT YEARS OF WORK. 

1 Year — Politics, Republic, Dia- 

logues of Plato. 

2 Years — Moral Philosophy. 
2 Years — Life of Christ. 

1 Year — Sermons. 

2 Years — Greek Philosophy; 

Thales to Socrates. 

I turn over the last pages of 
Jowett's '' Life and Letters/' and I 
find a list of his works. Is there a 
moral philosophy in the list? No. 
A life of Christ"? No. A treatise 
on Greek philosophy? No. But I 

49 



Letters from a Father to 

do find a volume of college sermons, 
published since his death, and also 
a new edition of his " Plato/' One 
of the most pathetic things in the 
volumes that cover his life is the 
constant reference to agenda — 
things he was to do. But the agenda 
rapidly become nugae — impossibili- 
ties — and the reason was simply, as 
it ever is, the lack of time. 

To save time, take time in large 
pieces. Do not cut time up into 
bits. Adopt the principle of con- 
tinuous work. The mind is like a 
locomotive. It requires time for 
getting under headway. Under 
headway it makes its own steam. 
Progress gives force as force makes 

50 



His Son Entering College 

progress. Do not slow down as long 
as you run well and without undue 
waste. Take advantage of momen- 
tum. Prolonged thinking leads to 
profound thinking. Steamers which 
have the longest routes seek deep- 
est waters. Let me also counsel you 
to do what must be done sometime 
as soon as possible. Thus you avoid 
worry. You save yourself needless 
trouble and waste. You also have 
the satisfaction of having the thing 
done which is a very blessed satis- 
faction. I would have you spring 
to your work in the mood and the 
way in which J. C. Shairp, in his 
poem on the '' Balliol Scholars/' 
spoke of Temple: — 

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Letters from a Father to 

*'With strength for labor, 'as the strength of 
ten' 
To ceaseless toil he girt him night and day : 
A native King and ruler among men, 

Ploughman or Premier, born to bear true 
sway : 
Small or great duty never known to shirk, 
He bounded joyously to sternest work — 
Lest buoyant others turn to sport and play/' 

Therefore, do not be a slave. Go 
at your job with enthusiasm. To 
get enthusiasm in work, work. 
Work creates enthusiasm for work 
in a healthy mind. The dyer's hand 
is not subdued to its materials; it is 
strengthened through materials for 
service. 



52 



His Son Entering College 

VIII 

You will soon learn, my son, that 
college men are, as a rule, sound in 
body, sane in mind, in heart pure, 
in will vigorous, keen in conscience, 
and filled with noble aspirations. 
Such men usually interpret life, 
both academic and general, in 
sanity and in justice. 

Yet, despite these happy condi- 
tions, there does prevail a danger 
of college men making certain mis- 
conceptions of college life. 

A misconception which is more or 
less common among students you 
will soon have occasion to see re- 
lates to the failure to distinguish, 

53 



. Letters from a Father to 



on the one side, knowledge from 
efficiency, and on the other, knowl- 
edge from cultivation. In the 
former time, the worth of knowl- 
edge, as knowledge, was emphasized 
in the college. The man who knew 
was regarded as the great man. To 
make each student an encyclopedia 
of information was a not uncommon 
aim. It is certainly well to know. 
Scholarship is seldom in peril of re- 
ceiving too high encomium. Yet, 
knowledge is not power. Some- 
times knowledge prevents the crea- 
tion, or retention, or use, of power. 
The intellect may be so clogged with 
knowledge that the will becomes 
sluggish or irregular in its action. 

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His Son Entering College 

Knowledge, however, is always 
to be so gathered that it shall create 
power and minister to efficiency. 
The accumulation of information is 
to be made with such orderliness, 
accuracy, thoroughness and com- 
prehensiveness, that these qualities 
shall represent the chief and lasting 
result of knowledge. Facts may be 
forgotten, but the orderliness, ac- 
curacy, thoroughness and compre- 
hensiveness in which these facts 
have been gathered are more im- 
portant than the facts themselves, 
and these qualities should, and may, 
become a permanent intellectual 
treasure. These qualities are ele- 
ments of efficiency. They are 

SS 



Letters from a Father to 

forces for making attainments, for 
securing results. The student, 
however, while he is securing the 
facts which lead to these qualities 
is in peril of forgetting the primary 
value of the qualities themselves. 

On the other side, the student is 
also in peril of failing to distinguish 
between knowledge as knowledge, 
and knowledge which leads to per- 
sonal cultivation. What is cultiva- 
tion, and who is the cultivated per- 
son ? Some would say that the culti- 
vated person is the person of beauti- 
ful manners, of the best knowl- 
edge of life's best things, who is at 
home in any society or association. 
Such a definition is not to be 

56 



His Son Entering College 

spurned. For, is it not said that 
" Manners make the man '' "? Man- 
ners make the man I That is, Do 
manners create the man? that is, 
Do manners give reputation to the 
man? that is, Do manners express 
the character of the man? Which 
of the three interpretations is 
sound? Or does each interpretatior 
intimate a side of the polygon? 

I know of a man put in nomina- 
tion for a place in an historic col- 
lege. The trustees were in doubt 
respecting his bearing in certain 
social relations. As a test, I may 
say, he was asked to be a guest at 
an afternoon tea. Rather silly way, 
in some respects, wasn't it? I 

57 



Letters from a Father to 

doubt if he to this day is aware of 
the trial to which he was subjected. 
The way one accepts or declines a 
note of invitation, the way one uses 
his voice, the way one enters or 
retires from a room may, or may not, 
be little in itself, but the simple act 
is evidence of conditions. For is 
not manner the comparative of 
man? I would not say it is the 
superlative. 

Others would affirm that the cul- 
tivated person is the person who 
appreciates the best which life of- 
fers. Appreciation is intellectual, 
emotional, volitional. It is dis- 
crimination plus sympathy. It con- 
tains a dash of admiration. It 

58 



His Son Entering College 

recognizes and adopts the best in 
every achievement, in the arts of 
literature, poetry, sculpture, paint- 
ing, architecture. The cultivated 
person seeks out the least unworthy 
in the unworthy, and the most 
worthy in that which is at all 
worthy. The person of cultivation 
'knows, compares, relates, judges. 
He has standards and he applies 
them to things, measures meth- 
ods. He is able to discriminate 
and to feel the difference between 
the Parthenon and the Madeleine, 
between a poem of Tennyson and 
one of Longfellow. His moral 
nature is fine, as his intellectual is 
honest. He is filled with reverence 

59 



Letters from a Father to 

for truth, duty, righteousness. He 
is humble, for he knows how great 
is truth, how imperative, duty. He 
is modest, for he respects others. He 
is patient with others and with him- 
self, for he knows how unattainable 
is the right. He can be silent when 
in doubt. He can speak alone when 
truth is unpopular. He is willing 
to lose his voice in the '' choir in- 
visible '' when it chants either the 
Miserere or the Gloria in Excelsis. 
He is a man of proportion, of real- 
ity, sincerity, honesty, justice, tem- 
perance — intellectual and ethical. 

The college man is in peril of for- 
getting the worth of cultivation. 

Knowledge should lead to cultiva- 

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His Son Entering College 

tion, but, as in the case of securing 
efficiency, the mind of the student 
may be so fixed upon processes as to 
fail to recognize the importance of 
the result as manifest in the cultiva- 
tion of his whole being. 

In the case of both efficiency and 
cultivation, the student is to remem- 
ber there is no substitute. Intel- 
lectual power cannot be counter- 
feited. Any attempt, also, to 
secure a sham cultivation is fore- 
ordained to failure. 

IX 

The student is also too prone to 

distinguish between academic 

morals and human morals. As a stu- 

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Letters from a Father to 

dent, he may crib in examination 
without compunction. As a stu- 
dent, he too often feels it is right 
to deceive his teacher. Students 
who are gentlemen and who would 
as soon cut their own throats as steal 
your purse, will yet steal your office 
sign or the pole of your barber. In 
such college outlawry he loses no 
sense of self-respect, and in no de- 
gree the respect of his fellow stu- 
dents. Let us confess at once that 
in what may be called academic 
immorals there is usually no sense 
of malice. This condition does 
create a distinct difference between 
academic and human ethics. Let 

the distinction be given full credit. 

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His Son Entering College 

Yet, be it at once and firmly said, 
a lie is a lie, and thieving is thieving. 
The blameworthiness may differ in 
different cases, but there is always 
blameworthiness. 

Be it also said the public does not 
usually recognize the distinction 
which the student himself seeks to 
make. The public becomes justly 
impatient with, and more or less in- 
dignant over, the horseplay, or im- 
moralities which students work out- 
side, and sometimes inside, college 
walls. The student is to remember 
that before he was a student he was 
a man, that after he has ceased to be 
a student he is to be a man, and 
while he is a student he is also to be 

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Letters from a Father to 

a man, and also before, after, and 
always he is to be a gentleman. 
Such irregular conditions belong, of 
course, to youth as well as to the 
student. The irreverence which 
characterizes all American life is 
prone to become insolence, when, in 
the student, it is raised to the second 
or third power. The able man and 
true — student or not a student — of 
course presently adjusts himself to 
orderly conditions. The academic 
experience proves to be a discipline, 
though sometimes not a happy one, 
and the discipline helps towards the 
achievement of a large and rich 
character. 



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His Son Entering College 

X 

Another misconception made by 
the student is also common. It is 
a misconception attaching to any 
weakness of his character. The 
student is inclined to believe that 
there may be weaknesses which are 
not structural. He may think that 
there may be some weakness in one 
part of his whole being which shall 
not affect his whole being. He may 
believe that he can skimp his intel- 
lectual labor without making his 
moral nature thin, or that he can 
break the laws of his moral nature 
without breaking his intellectual 
integrity. He may think that he 

65 



Letters from a Father to 

can play fast and loose with his will 
without weakening his conscience or 
without impairing the truthfulness 
of his intellectual processes. He 
may imagine that he is composed of 
several distinct potencies and that 
he can lessen the force of any one 
of them without depreciating the 
value of the others. Lamentable 
mistake, and one often irretrievable. 
For man is a unit. Weakness in one 
part becomes weakness in every 
part. In the case of the body, the 
illness of one organ damages all 
organs. If the intellect be dull, or 
narrow in its vision, or false in its 
logic, the heart refuses to be quick- 
ened and the conscience is disturbede 

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His Son Entering College 

If the heart be frigid, the intellect, 
in turn, declines to do its task with 
alertness or vigor. If conscience be 
outraged, the intellect loses force 
and the heart becomes clothed with 
shame. Man is one. Strength in 
one part is strength in, and for, every 
part, and weakness in one part re- 
sults in weakness in, and for, every 
part. 

For avoiding these three miscon- 
ceptions, the simple will of the col- 
lege man is of primary worth. If 
he will to distinguish knowledge 
from efficiency, and knowledge 
from cultivation, if he will to know 
that the distinction betwen aca- 
demic morals and human morals is 

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Letters from a Father to 

not so deep as some believe, and if 
he will to believe in the unity of 
character, the student has the pri- 
mary help for securing a sound idea 
and a right practice. 

XI 

I write to you, my boy, out of the 

experience and observation of thirty 

years in which I have followed as 

best I could the careers of graduates 

of many of our colleges. The other 

afternoon I set down the names of 

some of these graduates of the two 

colleges which I know best. Among 

them were men who, fifteen or 

thirty years after their graduation, 

are doing iirst-rate work. They are 

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His Son Entering College 

lawyers, editors, physicians, judges, 
clergymen, teachers, merchants, 
manufacturers, architects and writ- 
ers. As I have looked at the list 
with a mind somewhat inquisitive I 
have asked myself what are the 
qualities or conditions which have 
contributed to the winning of the 
great results which these men have 
won. 

The answers which I have given 
myself are manifold. For it is al- 
ways difficult in personal matters to 
differentiate and to determine 
causes. In mechanical concerns it 
is not difficult. But in the calcula- 
tion of causes which constitute the 

value of a person as a working 

69 



Letters from a Father to 

force one often finds oneself baffled. 
The result frequently seems either 
more or less than an equivalent of 
the co-operating forces. The per- 
sonal factor, the personal equation 
counts immensely. These values 
we cannot measure in scales or fig- 
ure out by the four processes of 
arithmetic. 

Be it said that the causes of the 
success of these men do not lie in 
their conditions. No happy com- 
bination of circumstances, no wind- 
fall of chance, gave them what they 
have achieved. If those who gradu- 
ated in the eighth decade had gradu- 
ated in the ninth, or if those who 

graduated in the ninth had gradu- 

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His Son Entering College 



ated in the earlier time, it probably 
would have made no difference. 
Neither does the name, with possibly 
a single exception, nor wealth prove 
to be a special aid. Nor have 
friends boosted or pushed them. 
Friends may have opened doors for 
them; but friends have not urged 
them either to see or to embrace op- 
portunities. 

These men seem to me to have 
for their primary and comprehen- 
sive characteristic a large sanity. 
They have the broad vision and the 
long look. They possess usually a 
kind of sobriety which may almost 
be called Washingtonian. The in- 
sane man reasons correctly from false 

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Letters from a Father to 

premises. The fool has no premises 
from which to reason. These men 
are neither insane nor foolish. They 
have suppositions, presuppositions, 
which are true. They also follow 
logical principles which are sound. 
They are in every way well-ordered. 
They keep their brains where their 
brains ought to be — inside their 
skulls. They keep their hearts 
where their hearts ought to be — in- 
side their chests. They keep their 
appetites where their appetites 
ought to be. Too many men keep 
their brains inside their chests: the 
emotions absorb the intellect. Too 
many men put their hearts inside 

their skull; the emotions are dried 

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His Son Entering College 



up in the clear air of thought. Too 
many put both brains and heart 
where the appetites are: both judg- 
ment and action are swallowed up 
in the animal. 

But these men are whole, whole- 
some, healthy, healthful. They 
seem to represent those qualities 
which, James Bryce says. Arch- 
bishop Tait embodied: "He had 
not merely moderation, but what, 
though often confounded with 
moderation, is something rarer and 
better, a steady balance of mind. 
He was carried about by no winds 
of doctrine. He seldom yielded to 
impulses, and was never so seduced 
by any one theory as to lose sight of 

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Letters from a Father to 

other views and conditions which 
had to be regarded. He knew how 
to be dignified without assumption, 
firm without vehemence, prudent 
without timidity, judicious without 
coldness/' They are remote from 
crankiness, eccentricity. They may 
or may not have fads; but they are 
not faddists. Not one of them is a 
genius in either the good or the evil 
side of conspicuous native power. 
They see and weigh evidence. They 
are a happy union of wit and wis- 
dom, of jest and precept, of work 
and play, of companionship and 
solitude, of thinking and resting, of 
receptivity and creativeness, of the 
ideal and the practical, of individu- 

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His Son Entering College 

alism and of sympathy. They are 
living in the day, but they are not 
living for the day. They embody 
the doctrine of the golden mean. 

Each of these men has also in 
his career usually more than filled 
the place he occupied. He has 
overflowed into the next higher 
place. The overflow has raised him 
into the higher lock. The career 
has been an ascending spiral. Each 
higher curve has sprung out of the 
preceding and lower. From the 
attorneyship of the county to ser- 
vice as attorney of the State, and 
to a place on the Supreme Bench of 
the United States : — From a pastor- 
ate in a small Maine city to a pas- 

7? 



Letters from a Father to 

torate suburban, and from the pas- 
torate suburban to a pastorate on 
Fifth Avenue: — From a professor- 
ship in an humble place to a pro- 
fessorship in largest relations: — 
From the building of cottages to the 
building of great libraries and 
museums. This is the order of pro- 
gression. I will not say that any of 
these men did the best he could do 
at every step of the way. Some did ; 
some did not, probably. But what 
is to the point, each did better than 
the place demanded. He more than 
earned his wages, his salary, his pay. 
He had a surplus ; he was a creditor. 
His employers owed him more than 
they paid him. They found the 

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His Son Entering College 

best way of paying him and keeping 
him was to advance him. 

Such is the natural evolution of 
skill and power. The only legiti- 
mate method of advancement is to 
make advancement necessary, in- 
evitable, by the simple law of 
achievement. The simple law of 
achievement depends upon the law 
of increasing force, which is the law 
that personal force grows through 
the use of personal force. 

Hiram Stevens Maxim in the 
sketch of his life tells of his working 
in Flynt's carriage factory at Abbot, 
Maine, when a boy of about fifteen. 
From Flynt's at Abbot he went to 
Dexter, a large town, where he be- 

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Letters from a Father to 

came a foreman. He presently 
went to a threshing machine factory 
in northern New York; thence to 
Fitchburg, Mass., where he ob- 
tained a place in the engineering 
works of his uncle. In this factory 
he says he could do more work than 
any other man save one. Thence 
he went to a place in Boston ; from 
Boston to New York, where he re- 
ceived high pay as a draughtsman. 
While he was working in New 
York he conceived the idea of 
making a gun which would load and 
fire itself by the energy derived 
from the burning powder. From 
work in a little place in Maine, 
Maxim, by doing each work the 

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His Son Entering College 

best possible, has made himself a 
larger power. 

Jb urthermore, these men represent 
goodfellowship. They embody 
friendliness. The late Robert Lowe 
(Viscount Sherbrooke) was at one 
time esteemed to be the equal of 
John Bright and of Gladstone in 
oratory, and their superior in intel- 
lect. He died in 1892 unknown 
and unlamented. He failed by 
reason of a lack of friendliness. 
Lowe was once an examiner at Ox- 
ford. Into an oral examination 
which he was conducting a friend 
came and asked how he was getting 
on. '' Excellently/^ replied Lowe, 
'' five men flunked already and the 

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Letters from a Father to 

sixth is shaky/' Ability without 
goodfellowship is usually ineffec- 
tive; good ability plus good fellow- 
ship makes for great results. 

In this atmosphere of friendli- 
ness, these men are practising the 
Golden Rule. They are not ad- 
vertising the fact. They do much 
in this atmosphere of friendliness 
for large bodies of people. They 
follow the sentiment which Pasteur 
expressed near the close of his great 
career: ''Say to yourselves first: 
' What have I done for my instruc- 
tion?' and, as you gradually ad- 
vance, ' What have I done for my 
country*?' until the time comes 

when you may have the immense 

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His Son Entering College 

happiness of thinking that you have 
contributed in some way to the pro- 
gress and to the good of humanity. 
But whether our efforts are or are 
not favored by life, let us be able 
to say when we come near the great 
goal : 1 have done what I could/ '* 
They have done much for the indi- 
vidual, for the local neighborhood. 
They have given themselves in num- 
berless services, boards, committees, 
commissions — works which count 
much in time and strength. These 
services constitute no small share of 
the worth of a commonwealth, of a 
community. 

To one relation of these men I 

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Letters from a Father to 

wish especially to refer. This is 
their relation to wealth. Some of 
these men are business men. Wealth 
is one of the normal results of busi- 
ness. Some of these men are pro- 
fessional men. Wealth is not the 
normal result of professional ser- 
vice. But the seeking of wealth has 
not in the life and endeavor of 
these men played a conspicuous 
part. If wealth is the primary pur- 
pose, they keep the purpose to 
themselves. They do not talk much 
about it. But most of them do not 
hold wealth as a primary purpose. 
Rather their primary and atmos- 
pheric aim is to serve the com- 
munity through their business. The 

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His Son Entering College 

same purpose moves them which 
also moves the lawyer, the minister, 
the doctor. Life, not living, is their 
principle. 

To one further element I must 
refer. It comprehends, perhaps, 
much that I have been trying to say 
to you, my son. These men kept, 
and are keeping themselves to their 
work. They do not waste them- 
selves. They are economical of 
time and strength. The late Pro- 
vost Pepper of the University of 
Pennsylvania said (in a manuscript 
not formally published) : '' Many 
can do with less than eight or even 
seven hours of sleep while working 
hard, provided they recognize the 

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Letters from a Father to 

I I !■ II II ■! -IIM II M. I ■ I ■^■■■1 ■■^^— — M^ 

increased risk; that while running 
their engine they take more scrupu- 
lous care with every part of the ma- 
chinery. Machine must be perfect, 
fuel ditto; everything must be sacri- 
ficed to the one point of keeping 
the machinery running thus: Sub- 
jection of carnal, emotional ex- 
cesses; certainty that no weak spots 
exist; diet, especially too much eat- 
ing, too fast eating; stimulants, to- 
bacco, open-air exercise; cool- 
headed, almost callous, critical 
analysis of oneself, one's sensations 
and effect of work on the system; 
clear knowledge of danger lines; re- 
sult, avoidance of transgressing, and 

immediate summons at right time/' 

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His Son Entering College 

These men are men of self-re- 
straint. They are like rivers having 
dams, keeping their waters back in 
order that the water may be used 
more effectively. They are free 
from entangling alliances. They 
are not men of one thing; they 
are often men of two, three, a 
dozen things. But one thing is pri- 
mary, the others secondary. They 
may have avocations ; but they have 
only one vocation. '' This one thing 
I do.'' I have already quoted from 
Pasteur. Of him it is said by his 
biographer: ''In the evening, after 
dinner, he usually perambulated 
the hall and corridor of his rooms at 
the Ecole Normale, cogitating over 

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Letters from a Father to 

various details of his work. At ten 
o'clock he went to bed, and at eight 
the next morning, whether he had 
had a good night or a bad one, he 
resumed his work in the labora- 
tory/' His wife wrote to their 
children : '' Your father is absorbed 
in his thoughts, talks little, sleeps 
little, rises at dawn, and in one 
word, continues the life I began 
with him this day thirty-five years 
ago." Learn from the Frenchman, 
my boy ! 

Keeping themselves at their one 
work these men embody a sense of 
duty. I find they have a conscience. 
Their conscience is not worn out- 
side, but inside, their bosom. They 

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His Son Entering College 

make no show of doing what they 
ought. They simply do what they 
are called upon to do — and that is 
all there is to it. It was said of a 
first scholar in an historic college 
that he was never caught working. 
These same men may, or may not 
be caught working, but they do 
work, and their work is a normal 
and moral part of their being. 

But your face, my son, is rather 
toward your own future than to- 
ward the past of other men. But 
your own future is as nothing save 
as it touches other men. There- 
fore, do have an enthusiasm for man 
as man. Enthusiasm for humanity 
has its basis in love for man as man, 

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Letters from a Father to 

in a belief in the indefinite progress 
of man and in a determination to 
promote that progress. In a posthu- 
mous romance of Hawthorne the 
heroine points out to her lover the 
service which they will give to man- 
kind in successive endless genera- 
tions. In one age, poverty shall be 
wiped out; in another, passion and 
hatred and jealousy shall cease; in 
a third, beauty shall take the place 
of ugliness, happiness of pain, and 
generosity of niggardliness. In 
reality, not in romance, every stu- 
dent is to feel a passion for human 
service. These toiling and tired 
brothers and sisters are to be loved, 

not with a mere emotional affection, 

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His Son Entering College 

but with a mighty will. One is to 
adopt the principle of Gladstone 
and not of the Marquis of Salis- 
bury in relation to humanity. 

The student also is to believe 
that the human brotherhood is capa- 
ble of indefinite progress. The law 
of evolution makes the belief in 
human perfectibility easy; the prin- 
ciples of religion make the belief 
glorious. Slow is the progress. One 
generation turns the jack-screw of 
uplifting one thread; but it is a 
thread. Humanity does rise. Linked 
with this love for man and the as- 
surance of his progress the college 
man is to determine himself to ad- 
vance this progress. Whatever his 

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Letters from a Father to 

condition, whatever his ability, he 
is to do his part. As is said in that 
noble epitaph to Wordsworth, 
placed in the little church at Gras- 
mere, each is to be '' a minister of 
high and sacred truth." 

I want you to come out from the 
college with a determination to do 
something worth while. It is rather 
singular how political ambitions 
have ceased among graduates. 
Some say all ambition has ceased 
among college men. I do not be- 
lieve it. The softer times may not 
nurse the sturdier virtues; but men 
are still men. The words which 
Stevenson wanted put on his tomb- 
stone: ''He clung to his paddle," 

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His Son Entering College 

and the words of George Eliot: 
'' Don't take opium," and the 
words of Carlyle : '' Burn your own 
smoke/' are still characteristic of 
college men. Men are still moved 
by the great things, and by such in- 
spiration they are inspired great 
things to do. 

XII 

I am not, I think, going too far 
if I refer to one very personal mat- 
ter, my son. I mean your relation 
to the Supreme Being. That Being 
may be conceived under many 
forms, as Love, as Omnipotent 
Force, as Omniscient Knowledge, 
as Perfect Beauty, as Absolute 

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Letters from a Father to 

Right. The college man interprets 
the Supreme Being under at least 
one of these forms; and he may be 
able to interpret him under all of 
these forms. To this Being he 
should relate himself. Let the col- 
lege man learn, and learn all; but 
he should not neglect to learn of 
the Divine Being. The college 
man should love, and love every 
object as it is worthy of loving; but 
he should not decline to love the 
Supreme Being. For He is Su- 
preme. 

The college man is to follow the 
wisest leadership, to obey the high- 
est principles, to give himself to the 

contemplation of the sublimest; but 

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His Son Entering College 

his following, his obedience, his 
self-surrender are to bring him to 
and keep him with the Being Su- 
preme. Religion thus broadly in- 
terpreted makes a keen and mighty 
appeal to the college man. Let the 
college man be religious; let not the 
college man have a religion. Let 
religion be a fundamental element 
of his character, and not a quality 
of his changing self. His religion, 
like that of every other man, should 
first be human, not scholastic; first 
essential and natural, not arbitrary. 
Be religious. It sounds almost 
goodish, but I know you do not 
think it such. Be religious. Relate 
yourself to something. Relate your- 

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Letters from a Father to 

self to some What. Or relate your- 
self to some Who : beyond whatever 
your eye sees or your hand touches. 
I do not care how you put it. If I 
were a Buddhist, I would say, wor- 
ship Buddha. Be what the great 
image at Kamakura represents. If 
I were a Mohammedan, I would say, 
follow the teachings of the Koran, 
and pray. I am, and you are, a 
Christian. Therefore I say: Love 
your God. Follow the example of 
the Christ. Be one of that company 
who accept his guidance and are 
seeking to do his will in the better- 
ing of the world. 

Good-bye, dear boy, I have 
written too long, but it has done m^ 

94 



His Son Entering College 

good to write. If it does you a 
quarter of the good to read, I shall 
be grateful. 
Good-bye. 

Your Father. 



95 



APR 16 1912 



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